A Geek With Guns

Many districts have been pushing hard for electronic voting machines. People believe that electronic devices are going to be more reliable for elections than any mechanical system could be. Machines that are used in the voting process are mechanically simple and thus it’s fairly easy to predict what kind of failures you’ll run into unlike complex electronic devices:

Tests on an electronic voting machine that recorded shockingly high numbers of extra votes in the 2010 election show that overheating may have caused upwards of 30 percent of the votes in a South Bronx voting precinct to go uncounted.

WNYC first reported on the issue in December 2011, when it was found that tens of thousands of votes in the 2010 elections went uncounted because electronic voting machines counted more than one vote in a race.

A review by the state Board of Election and the electronic voting machines’ manufacturer ES&S found that these “over votes,” as they’re called, were due to a machine error. In the report issued by ES&S, when the machine used in the South Bronx overheated, ballots run during a test began coming back with errors.

“After lunch [when the machine was idle for about an hour] almost every ballot was read incorrectly, in all orientations, even ballots that had read correctly just before lunch,” the ES&S report said.

Electronics are finicky and generally much more prone to unpredictable failures than mechanical devices. Minor variances in temperature, moisture, and electrical conditions can cause electronics to fail in strange and difficult to predict ways. Combine this with the fact computer software is almost impossible to write well and you have a perfect storm for massive electron fraud.

The Vikings subsidy is on its way to governor Dayton’s office:

After a grinding week of late nights and marathon floor sessions, the state Senate granted final approval to a new Minnesota Vikings stadium on the final day of the legislative session.

“We delivered,” said Republcican Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Farmington, who sponsored the stadium bill. “We are going to have first-class stadium we can all be very, very proud of.”

The Senate approved the $975 million project on a vote of 36-30 amid cheers from Vikings fans in the gallery. The House gave final approval to the bill at 3:30 a.m., after the team agreed to kick in an extra $50 million.

Once signed the kabuki will be concluded and I must say it was fairly well done. As is the tradition of kabuki the stadium deal followed the five acts formula:

Nearly every full-length play occupies five acts. The first corresponds to jo, an auspicious and slow opening which introduces the audience to the characters and the plot. The next three acts correspond to ha, speeding events up, culminating almost always in a great moment of drama or tragedy in the third act and possibly a battle in the second and/or fourth acts. The final act, corresponding to kyu, is almost always short, providing a quick and satisfying conclusion.

The planning phase, where Zygi started making his intentions of building a new stadium public would have been the first act. It really set the stage, let the audience become familiar with the characters, and slowly got the ball rolling. The second act started with Zygi started petitioning for public funding in Minneapolis. From there acts three and four revolves around Minneapolis pretending they were at odds with the deal and moved it up to the state level where the debates started and the possibility of failure was fabricated. The last several days were act five, a fast passed series of late night debates that cumulated into a conclusion that many felt satisfied with.

Overall I believe it was a well done play although it could have been better. If I had written the script I would have had a tragic death inserted somewhere in act three or four then in act five I would have had one of the characters introduce a plea to name the new stadium after the fallen individuals. It would have been a far more emotionally appealing ending and much more drama could have been inserted. Even without the tragedy and drama of death the play was pretty decent and had many people on the edges of their seat. A good playwright knows how to engage his or her audience and you can’t say the audience wasn’t engaged with this play. We had audience members at the capitol dressed up in costume cheering on the characters while other audience members stood by with signs decrying the stadium supporters. Both parties felt as though they had a say in the ongoings of the play just as many people believe hoping a character in a movie won’t die has some kind of outcome on the movie’s ending.

My compliments to the writers. While I find the play less than satisfying because I was easily able to predict the ending I respect how well it was executed.

Michelle Bachmann, runner up for craziest Minnesota politician (Lynne Torgerson currently holds the title), has obtained a Swiss citizenship:

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has been granted citizenship in Switzerland.

Bachmann’s spokeswoman Becky Rogness says the congresswoman has been eligible for dual citizenship since she married her husband of Swiss descent in 1978.

I hope Bachmann does the right thing and renounces her American citizenship. The quicker she’s out of the country the better this country will be.

No sooner did several Democrats introduce a bill (named after Trayvon Martin of course, can’t let that crisis go to waste) to repeal stand your ground laws federally it has been rescinded:

Democrats backed off of their effort Tuesday to offer a “Trayvon amendment” to pressure states to drop their stand-your-ground laws after learning it was likely to be ruled out of order under the evening’s rules for debate on the House floor.

Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, said he will still try to force a debate at a more “appropriate” time in the future, saying action is demanded by the case of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who police said was shot dead in a street encounter with a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The Ellison amendment would have docked federal criminal justice grants to states that have stand-your-ground laws, which allow residents to use deadly force to respond to an attack without first having to retreat.

No debate is needed, stand your ground laws are basic common sense. Why should I be forced to face possible prison time because some punk decided to attack me outside of my home? Why should I be subjected to possible criminal charges because some schmuck fabricated a way I could have fled a location where I was attacked? Why should be I prohibited the right to self-defense in a life threatening situation?

I’m not at all surprised that an idiot like Ellison (why do these idiots have to be from my state) introduced a bill that would further disarm individuals and benefit violent criminals. Let’s face it, Ellison isn’t concerned about stand your ground laws. The Trayvon Martin case is the perfect platform for one to boost their political career. Public opinion has ruled Zimmerman guilty or murdering Martin so any politicians who can successfully exploit the tragedy is looking to get a little boost at the polls. This is pure exploitation plain and simple.

The gay community is standing up and cheering now that Obama has come out in support of gay marriage. Unfortunately Obama is suckering these poor people as his phrasing was very carefully chosen:

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own.

Isn’t it funny how Obama entirely oppose the concept of state rights until it’s convenient for him? Obama’s statement could be better phrased as, “Hey guys I want to say I support gay marriage to get the gay vote but I don’t want to alienate the conservative christians so I’m still going to leave myself a backdoor.” He didn’t actually commit to anything, he just said something he knew people want to hear and let them fill in the blank themselves.

What people seem to miss is that the debate over legalizing gay marriage entirely misses the point. The debate shouldn’t be whether or not to legalize gay marriage is should be whether or not the state has any right to enter the marriage businesses (by the way the answer is no). Voluntary association only involves the people associating so nobody else should have any say in the matter. If you want to marry another person of the same sex, multiple people, a battle rifle, etc. it should be entirely up to you. Just remember that as an ordained minister and soon to be license to perform marriages in the state of Minnesota I will happily marry you to whomever or whatever you want.

People often ask me, “Chris, if you don’t believe we can change things politically why do you even talk about politics?” The answer is simple, politics is my sick form of amusement. Politics is nothing more than a sport in my opinion and in this sport there are spectators, commentators, players, and coaches. The spectators are your average people who merely watch the game and cheer by otherwise have no power to change the outcome. Commentators are the people who talk about what is happening, explain the players’ strategies, and otherwise help the spectators understand what’s happening. Politicians are the players and lobbyists are the coaches.

I play the part of commentator. Beyond explaining how the game is player I also explain what is or has recently happened. Like the spectators I have no actual power to affect the game but enjoy observing it and talking about it.

The spectators generally know the rules of the game by heart but know nothing of the nuances. They know that a bill must pass the Senate and House then be signed by the president but don’t understand all the lobbying and cronyism that goes on behind closed doors instead relying on commentators to explain those parts. While there are a vast number of teams playing this sport spectators generally have a very binary view of things. They only see the game as “their team” versus “the other team.” “Their team” is one the left or right side of the field while “the other team” is on the opposite side of the field. What about the other fields? Entirely forgotten unless “their team” is playing an away game there. Most of these spectators hold a great deal of superstition regarding games and believe their performance of certain rituals, like voting, can actually change the outcome of the game. No matter how many times you explain their wearing a specific red hat or jersey has no affect on the outcome of the game they refuse to believe you.

Coaches are the ones who call the shots. They train the players and develop the strategies but don’t physically play the game. Lobbyists and other cronies are the ones who tell the politicians what “the spectators” want and give them the strategies to achieve those desires. When an automobile manufacturer crony approaches a politician with a bill designed to shut out the manufacturer’s competition they will tell the politician how to sell it to the public. The crony will explain that the bill is for improving the environment and ignores the fact that implementing the bill’s demands is extremely expensive and therefore will cause smaller competitors to go out of business. Taking the crony’s advice the politicians being to play the actual game, selling the spectators what they want to see.

Each team promises to deliver its fans what they want. Fans of the “left” generally want the “right” to fail. When a player for the “left” says the fans want higher taxes on the wealth the “left’s” fans begin demanding higher taxes on the wealth. The “right” tells its fans to oppose higher taxes on the wealthy so the “right’s” fans begin vehemently opposing higher taxes on the wealthy. Whether the “left” wins or the “right” wins is irrelevant because nothing will negatively affect the wealthy, yet the spectators will feel as though they received a glorious victory or a horrendous defeat. Either way the spectators keep buying tickets and watching the game while the coaches and players become insanely wealthy.

That’s what politics is, a game. You can play any part if you really want to but ultimately the only people who matter are the players and coaches. That is until you realize that the game can no longer be played if the spectators stop showing up and giving the game legitimacy. Nothing will change regardless of what team wins, the only winning move is not to play.

If you’re in Minnesota you likely know about the “vote” being taken by our “representatives” at the Capitol regarding the Vikings Stadium. I use the word vote in quotation marks because this isn’t a vote, it’s a formality. The bottom line is this stadium was ensured to be built the second Zygi Wilf, the owner of the Vikings, said he wanted the state to fork over a large part of the stadium’s cost. Zygi is a politically well-connected billionaire meaning anything Zygi wants Zygi will get, he merely needs to make the right deal. Apparently he made the right deal since the Minnesota House voted in favor of the stadium:

The Minnesota Vikings won a decisive and long-awaited political victory late Monday when the House passed a public subsidy package for a new stadium, sending the project marching toward final passage at the State Capitol.

When the final vote was announced, two dozen Vikings fans — most clad in team jerseys — cheered loudly outside the House chamber and sang the team’s fight song. Afterward, amid chants of “Build A Stadium, Save Our Team!” Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak made his way through the crowd and was congratulated by smiling fans.

The final vote came after a day of high drama and a weekend of intense lobbying by Gov. Mark Dayton and the team, and produced a relatively easy 73-to-58 approval in the House. Though Republicans hold a majority in the House, DFLers did the heavy political lifting on the final vote, producing 40 of the 73 votes. The victory was also noteworthy because House Speaker Kurt Zellers — the leading Republican in the House — voted against the project.

There is much to be said about this entire fiasco. First let me address the rampant hypocrisy involved in this decision. Many people who are demanding the state pay a chunk of the stadium are also demanding the state tax the wealthy more. In fact the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) is usually the party working to increase taxes on the wealthy yet were the ones to vote most favorably towards a publicly funded stadium. The hypocrisy is almost palpable, they just voted to give a bunch of money to a billionaire. Perhaps they believe the state should tax the wealthy more but subsidize the super wealthy?

Outside of the hypocrisy a question must be asked: what do the Vikings have to offer the politicians? Deals like these must be mutually beneficially and therefore Zygi must offer something of value to get his subsidy. Unfortunately these deals are always performed behind closed doors and thus we never learn about them until after the fact. Beyond campaign contributions I believe another thing of value was likely offered, jobs. When things were looking bleak for the Vikings stadium deal the National Football League (NFL) entered the game. What does the NFL consistently try to do? Get public funding for stadiums. What do you need to get consistent public funding? Lobbyists. As a general rule politicians are often offered plush lobbying positions by large corporations for favorable legislation so I wouldn’t be surprised to see several prominent Minnesota “representatives” receive jobs with the NFL after they exit politics.

What’s done is done. I am merely a commentator and thus have no power to influence the game, but I do have the ability to make some predictions. It’s no secret that the economy is getting worse, which would make an intelligent person ask why the Vikings want to build a new stadium now. With a crumbling economy won’t people become less willing to buy tickets to see a game? Of course. Does it matter to the Vikings? Absolutely not. Why? Because the same arguments they use to get public funding for a new stadium can be used to get ticket prices subsidized.

Zygi Wilf isn’t an idiot and thus has likely already come up with the same idea I’m about to present. Throughout this entire stadium fiasco the primary argument used by proponents of public funding for the stadium have been based on supposed economic benefits brought by the Vikings. The beauty of such arguments is they can be used to justify almost any subsidy. Let’s step ahead several years where further economic failures have caused ticket sales at Vikings games to falter. Zygi, seeing his profits plument, has decided he needs another subsidy. How can he sell it? Easy. All it has to do is tell the politicians that he will sell off the Vikings if they fail to be profitable. Such a sale would cause them to move elsewhere and thus deprive Minnesota of the economic benefit the team supposedly brings. Since the Minnesota economy is already at a very vulnerable point the loss of the Vikings will cause complete collapse and therefore the economy of Minnesota depends on subsidized ticket prices from the state. Using this argument the politicians will vote to subsidize some arbitrarily chosen percentage of ticket prices so more fans can enjoy the games and the Vikings can remain profitable. It’s all for the greater good after all.

Many people reading that likely scoffed and rolled their eyes but I believe my prediction is pretty sound. We must only wait and see (and if it does happen I’m going to be doing the biggest “I told you so” dance anybody has ever seen).

Coming as no surprise to anybody who actually pays attention to politics Rick Santorum has officially endorse Mitt Romney:

In a late-night email, he urged his supporters to back the presumptive nominee in order to deny President Barack Obama a second term.

Mr Santorum said he was impressed by Mr Romney’s “deep understanding” of economic and family issues, following a meeting with him last week.

I’m told that during his address Santorum said he was unable to endorse Ron Paul in good conscious because of Paul’s stark opposition of war and his lack of hatred for “brown people” and “the gays.”

The only reason Santorum’s endorsement means anything to me is because he holds bounded delegates. Bounded delegates are those who are stuck voting for a candidate at the Republican National Convention (RNC). The question of what will happen to Santorum’s bounded delegates when he suspended his campaign last month has been the subject of debate. With his officially endorsement of Romney the question raised (at least in my opinion) is whether or not Santorum’s bounded delegates will now be bounded to Romney.

I’m sure somebody can point to an official RNC rule regarding this but I have no delusions of the RNC actually following any set of rules. They’ve already threatened to not seat any delegates from Nevada if the state sends too many Ron Paul supporters. It would be trivial for the RNC to announce that any delegate bounded to Santorum must not vote for Romney. Of course doing that would put their justification for threatening Nevada into question. The RNC claimed its threat against Nevada was done because they didn’t believe the Paul supporters would obey the RNC rules and endorse the candidate they were bounded to. Many of Santorum’s supporters were vehemently opposed to Romney for various reasons and outright refused to give the former Massachusetts governor any support. These people may not play by the RNC rules either so it would only make sense if the RNC refused to seat any delegates from states that hold bounded Santorum delegates.

Once again I’m really hoping the RNC pulls something incredibly shady with this situation. The faster people wake up and realize the Republican Party isn’t for the people or by the people the quicker they can reduce the party to ash and hopefully start one or more new viable parties.

France, like the rest of the world, is facing economic ruin. The government has been doling out money so long that they’ve racked up a debt they can never hope to pay off and unemployment continues to creep up. To solve this problem the French have elected a socialist.

Think about that.

Due to economic failures the French elected a socialist. That’s like having a convicted repeat child molester babysit your children. Either way the new president of France, Francois Hollande, is calling for a 75 percent tax rate on those who earn more than 1 million euros a year:

“Above 1m euros [£847,000; $1.3m], the tax rate should be 75% because it’s not possible to have that level of income,” he said.

[...]

Mr Hollande himself renewed his call on Tuesday, saying the 75% rate on people earning more than one million euros a year was “a patriotic act”.

“It’s a signal that has been sent, a message of social cohesion, there is an effort to be made,” he explained.

“It is patriotic to agree to pay a supplementary tax to get the country back on its feet.”

Did you get that? It’s patriotic to have 75 percent of your wealth stolen! This idea isn’t going to fly as history has demonstrated. What most people who demand the rich be taxed don’t stop to consider is that the rich are wealthy enough to leave a country at will. The United States doesn’t have anywhere near a 75 percent income tax and many wealthy individuals are still renouncing their citizenships over the high taxation:

This year almost 1,800 people renounced their American citizenship and Green Cards as published in the Federal Register, thanks to a costly and timely tax requirement.

So here are my predictions for France, most of which are torn from the pages of Pictures of a Socialistic Future [PDF] (a great book written in the 1800s that successfully predicted what conditions in socialist countries would be like).

Upon the 75 percent tax rate becoming law many of the wealthiest in France are going to abandon the country and renounce their citizenships. After enough people start fleeing France the government will implement Soviet-esque border controls and prevent those with means from leaving unless they leave something behind as a hostage collateral. From there things will only get more draconian since the massively jacked up tax rate won’t actually improve economic conditions but will do quite the opposite. Not wanting to face the prospects of being successful people in France will cease any attempt at real entrepreneurship or turn entirely to the black market. As a last resort France may turn to issuing their own money again, which will be printed so fast hyperinflation will be guaranteed.

Basically France is fucked if they continue down their current economic road.

The Minnesota Republican State Convention is being held in two weeks and I humbly present the following as consideration for the official motto of the Ron Paul supporters: